Maddow, Rachel (2012) Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power

Historically, the “drift” of the military from American society was not automatic but planned. When Ronald Reagan needed money to fight he sold weapons to one country through another country. It was to be a secret war, but alas they were caught. Reagan could have been impeached, but was allowed to remain in office. From then on a new societal infrastructure was created without folks becoming upset that another war was continuing.

All the presidents up to and including Obama can fight wars with military, reservists, and mercenaries. Thus protests and the interfering Congress will leave a president alone. The public is barely aware that a war of sizable dimension is being conducted. Only a few know and that is fine to every president so far. The imagery on the media is not there. No secret war is being conducted. It gets lost among the numerous tabloid features and related. Many times the news is lite and entertaining.

The military is also asked to do work in areas that are far from their field. The institution that conducts war is the most popular of all government institutions. Thus, giving assignments of other areas reduces and shames the critics at home.

National Guard and Reservists should return to their traditional duty of protecting the home front. Military families now rarely see their mother or father who have gone to war. This can be changed, but the recruit of civilians changes the entire process. Americans want quick, short, successful wars. The most divisive was the war in Vietnam.

Privatization of troops also incorporates “sex slaves” and related activities. Private companies can make greater profits if the journalist embeds are not the part of the war. What civilians do not know won’t hurt them.

Further, we have trillions of dollars of weapons that are created for a nuclear holocaust. However, they are getting rusty and fungus is growing on them. We don’t know what kind of shape they are in and if and how they work. They are spread throughout the planet. Additionally, some need to be repaired, but the generation that built them are now dying or dead. There is not a generation to repair these instruments of death. This place us in a corner .What should we do?

Dr. Maddox does a wonderful job describing some of the problems. At times, her writing is entertaining dealing with a very sober subject. She notes at the end, that all this can be changed. Thus, there are so many rewards to keeping or slightly changing a system. However, when new presidents come in, thousands upon thousands of people or more are happy with a civilian population that is comfortably dumb.

The most positive aspects of this book is that so much information is in between the covers. Describing how that may change may be the hardest part. Voting against the military is difficult and makes the legislator’s reputation weak and s/he is vulnerable to losing their position in Congress.

On the other hand, it appears that she has done her job. This and her other work makes this a worthwhile endeavor. She is a household name.

Buy the book.

Prof. Joel Snell

Kirkwood College

Cedar Rapids, Ia.